Communications systems frequently include a plurality of network nodes that are coupled to base stations, e.g., access nodes, through which end nodes, e.g., mobile devices, are coupled to the network.
The end nodes, referred to as wireless terminals, are typically granted identification numbers when they are actively communicating with the access nodes. These granted identification numbers are sometimes referred to as active identification numbers. In a non-orthogonal system, when each of the active users transmits their signal, whether communicating control information or actual traffic, the active users create interference to one another. In an orthogonal system, interference between active users transmitting to the same access node is theoretically prevented by allocating, e.g., partitioning, uplink channel resources, among the various active users. The allocated resources include resources used to communicate control information and resources used to communicate traffic, e.g., user data. The allocation is based on the identification numbers of the active wireless terminals and can be either according to a fixed pattern or based on information about the allocation received during the communication process. In either case using this approach, a given channel resource is allocated to at most one active identification number, letting the wireless terminal with that active identification number use the channel resource for transmission.
In such a system, it is possible that occasionally a wireless terminal assumes a wrong active identification number, possibly due to uncorrected errors in the information bits that convey the identification number or due to faulty operation of the wireless terminal or the access node. Irrespective of the reason why the wireless terminal assumes a wrong identification number, this situation can result in the wireless terminal transmitting a signal on a channel resource that has not really been allocated to it. This results in added interference to uplink signal from the wireless terminal to which the wrongly assumed identification number really belongs thus hampering the communication process of that wireless terminal.
In view of the above discussion, it should be appreciated that there is a need for new and improved ways of mitigating the effects of a situation where one or more wireless terminals in the system have wrongly assumed active identification numbers thereby hampering the communication process of wireless terminals to whom the active identification numbers genuinely belong to.